说到营销领域的老大，还要数美国电话电报公司（AT&T）：据坎特传媒公司（Kantar Media ）披露，去年，AT&T投入了约20亿美元，用于单个品牌的打造，这样的大手笔堪称美国公司之最。【虽然宝洁公司（Procter & Gamble）的预算超过AT&T，但却被用于不同的品牌。】而负责AT&T品牌建设的正是公司全球营销官、55岁的凯西•库格林。最近，她接受了《财富》杂志（Fortune）杰夫•科尔文的专访，谈到了如何在24小时内创作网络电视商业广告，无手机恐惧症的兴起，以及未来的伞柄发光的奥妙所在等等话题。以下为访谈内容摘录：

    问：AT&T在奥运会上开展了大规模的营销活动。看起来，似乎是非常传统的营销方式。是这样的吗？

    答：完全不是。比方说，我们今年采取了一些与众不同的方式。我们充分利用公司赞助的运动员们夺取金牌时的表现，将其用于第二天的商业广告中。比如，丽贝卡•索尼赢得游泳比赛金牌之后，紧接着就有一则广告，广告中一位年轻的游泳选手正在智能手机上观看她的那场比赛。这真的是非常有趣。许多人给我们的反馈是“你们怎么做到的？”因为我们是一家“反思可能（Rethink possible）”的公司，我们希望通过市场营销实现这个理念。

    你们进行了大量消费者调查。通过这些调查，你们对消费者的生活方式有怎样的了解？目前又有哪些变化？

    我们发现，在人们的生活中，科技所扮演的角色处于不断的变化之中，人们对待科技的态度也在发生转变。三四年前，在推出“反思可能”之前，我们对一条新广告语进行了测试，广告语基本是围绕“做得更多”这个概念。而人们的反应是：“我可不想做得更多。离我远点。我感觉自己都成了计算机的奴隶了。它把我和我的家人隔绝开来。它正在蚕食我的生活。”

    去年，我们又进行了同类测试，结果却是截然相反。人们认为：“我的设备就是我的一部分。它让我的生活更加丰富。它帮我过上‘移动生活’，可以帮我照料和看护我的家人，让我一下子变成了英雄。”

    从市场营销的角度来看，人们在很短的时间内，就从害怕科技变成了害怕失去科技。我昨天刚读到一种关于害怕没带手机的新术语——无手机恐惧症（nomophobia，源自no-mobile-phone phobia）。

    你们有超过一亿消费者，而且依照AT&T的公司性质，你们可以掌握消费者的大量信息。你们如何利用这一点来进一步加深对消费者的了解，并用来指导公司的营销活动？

    现在有一些有趣的新趋势不断出现。几年前，我们可能会在上班之前以及上下班的路上使用智能手机。而现在，我们每天都在用它。虽然办公桌上明明有电话，却没有人用。我们每天都在使用移动技术。所以，我们投入数百万美元，利用新天线技术，增强楼宇内的服务，尤其是纽约、芝加哥、旧金山等高楼林立的城市。这对市场营销具有非常重要的意义。就拿首席信息官的工作来说吧，他们再也不必对员工应该使用什么设备指手画脚。人们并不喜欢配备多台设备。所以，从营销角度，我们会发现一个非常有趣的转变，即对于公司使用的技术，公司员工拥有越来越多的发言权。

    人们消费媒体的方式也在快速变化。这对你们的营销有什么影响？

    科技已经从人们恐惧的对象变成了时刻都离不开的必备品，因此，我们的营销就是展示日常生活中对科技的应用。我们不仅会采取传统商业广告的方式，还会借助网络和YouTube等平台。我们与《英雄》（Hero，NBC电视台在2006年至2010年期间推出的电视剧）和《触摸未来》【Touch，福克斯公司（Fox）今年推出的电视剧】的编剧蒂姆•科林，以及我们的广告代理商BBDO，合作制作了一部非常优秀的五集网络短剧《破晓》（Daybreak）。我们没有采取传统的娱乐营销方式，把产品放在道具桌子上，然后为植入式广告付钱，相反，我们把科技融入到整个故事情节。故事主人公“本”在与邪恶势力作斗争，他利用我们的技术与恶势力进行周旋。

    Bigtime marketing doesn't get much bigger than this: AT&T (T) spends more money -- some $2 billion last year, says Kantar Media -- building a single brand than any other company in America. (Procter & Gamble (PG) wields a larger ad budget but divides it among scores of brands.) Commanding the branding is Cathy Coughlin, 55, AT&T's global marketing officer. She spoke recently with Fortune's Geoff Colvin about creating network TV commercials for the Olympics in 24 hours, the rise of nomophobia (fear of not having your cellphone), why your umbrella's handle may one day glow, and much else. Edited excerpts:

    Q: AT&T had a large marketing presence in the Olympics. That may seem a very traditional kind of marketing. Was it?

    A: Not at all. For example, this year we did something different. We used gold-medal-winning performances by some of our sponsored athletes in the commercials the day after the winning performance. In the case of Rebecca Soni, her gold-medal swimming performance was followed by a commercial with a young swimmer watching that performance on her smartphone. It's been really fun. We've gotten a lot of "How did they do that?" reaction. We're a "Rethink possible" company, and we want that to come to life in our marketing.

    You do a lot of consumer research. What have you learned about how your customers live and how that's changing?

    We've seen an amazing shift in the role that technology plays in people's lives and how they view technology. Three or four years ago we were testing a new advertising line prior to "Rethink possible," and it was around this notion of doing more. People's reaction was, "I don't want to do more. Get away from me. I feel like I'm a slave to my computer. I feel like it's separating me from my family. It's taking away from my life."

    We did that same sort of research last year and saw it completely flip-flop. People tell us, "My device is part of who I am. It enriches my life. It helps me live on the go. It helps me take care of my family, watch over them, be the hero in the moment."

    From a marketing perspective, we've gone in a very short time from people being fearful of technology to being fearful of being without it. I just read yesterday that there's a new term for the fear of not being with your phone -- nomophobia. It's derived from no-mobile-phone phobia.

    You have over 100 million customers, and by the nature of the business, you can know a great deal about them. How has that enabled you to know them better and inform your marketing?

    Some interesting trends are emerging. Just a few years ago you and I would use our smartphones before work, on the way to work, and on the way home. Now we're using them all day. Even though in your office you have a phone on the desk, you don't use it. You're using your mobile technology all day. So we're spending millions of dollars enhancing the service inside the building with new antenna technology, especially in places like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, where there are so many high-rise buildings. This has lots of implications from a marketing perspective. An example is working with CIOs, because they no longer dictate the device you're going to use. People don't want multiple devices. So you see an interesting shift from a marketing perspective, where the employee has a bigger voice in the technology that's being used in companies.

    The way people consume media is also changing fast. How has what you learned affected your marketing?

    Because technology has gone from something you fear to something you fear being without, our marketing is showing the use of technology in everyday life. That's showing up in places on the web and on YouTube in addition to traditional commercials. We partnered with Tim Kring, the creator of Heroes [a series on NBC from 2006 to 2010] and of Touch [a series launched this year on Fox], and with our advertising agency, BBDO, to create a really great five webisodes called Daybreak. Instead of the traditional entertainment marketing approach, where I put my product on the table and pay for that placement, the technology is integrated into the story line. Ben, the hero in our story, is fighting the forces of evil, and he is using our technology to get around the bad guys.

    另外一个例子是我们在YouTube上推出的一部短剧，名为《相离时相知》（Away We Happened）。创作这部短剧，是因为我们发现亚裔美国人使用社交媒体的比例超出平均水平。因此我们创作了这部六集短剧。有趣的是，我们只创作了第一集。两个年轻人在去机场路上的咖啡店里，因为意外事件相遇，并错拿了彼此的行李。在结尾处，我们提出了问题：“你认为故事应该如何发展？”“他们应该见面吗？”观众通过Facebook提出了各种想法，还进行了投票。之后，我们据此编写下一周的剧本，然后进行拍摄、制作，并在YouTube上播放。目前，这部短剧已有数百万观众。公司的智能手机设备也是故事中不可或缺的一部分。这对我们来说确实是非常有趣的冒险尝试。

    这些都是营销尝试。你们会设法去衡量这种营销手段吗？

    当然。

    你们如何衡量？

    方法很多。《破晓》的观看次数有数百万次，而且我们还开发了一款名为Jackboxer App的手机应用。在《破晓》里，Jackboxer都是正义一方。用户将这款应用下载到手机中，就可以一路跟进短剧情节。用户可以更深入了解在网剧中所用的技术，于是我们专门制作了一个网站。我们很幸运，因为消费者对短剧中的科技元素充满了热情，因此总是希望了解更多。我们发现，许多用户登陆网站，平均会花费大约一个小时的时间浏览各种技术，查看网剧中使用的HTC ONE设备，还有翻译器和沃森语音技术（Watson）等等。

    无线运营商竞相推出新服务，竞争可谓非常激烈。你们如何保持竞争优势？

    我们认为，我们的优势就是规模最为庞大的群策群力构思创意项目。我们有250,000名员工。任何员工都可以提交自己的创意，真正做到了群策群力。所以大家经常会说：“这个怎么样”或者“那个怎么样？”我们把其中一些非常不错的创意用到了商业应用中。比如，为了兼顾工作和家庭，一位年轻的父亲上班时会带两部手机，其中一部用于工作，另外一部则用来和家人联络。于是，他希望赋予一部手机多重身份，并提交了这一理念。然后，我们在达拉斯城外的Foundry创意中心（AT&T全球三大创意中心之一）针对这一理念进行开发。最终，这个创意变成了一款商业产品，便是我们在去年秋天发布的AT&T Toggle技术。

    你负责公司的品牌建设，但归根结底，品牌还是依靠公司及员工行为来体现，对此你怎么看？

    我们经常说，只有当人们走进2,300多家零售店，当一名技术人员来到消费者家中，当消费者使用我们的产品与服务时，AT&T品牌才真正鲜活起来。广告就像是蛋糕上的拉花，用户体验才是蛋糕本身。

    现在，所有想要手机的美国人几乎已经人手一部，你们如何寻找更大的增长机会？

    过去五年，对我们来说其实只能算是冰山一角。过去五年，公司网络的使用率增加了20,000%。未来五年，只要宽带频谱可用，预计我们仍会以每年75%的速度增长。所以，目前的成绩根本不算什么。

    数字家庭是一个很好的例子。未来，大家可以从办公室或者度假的地方管理家庭，不仅可以查找家中哪处用水出现了问题，还可以用平板电脑把水关掉。如果你的儿子或者女儿回到家，却发现门锁了，你可以激活摄像头，打开门，看着他们进家门。甚至可以监督孩子们写作业。

    如果要出门，不需要去查看是否要下雨，因为你的伞柄会发光，这是在告诉你：“你最好带上我，因为今天有雨。”宗旨，当一切都连接到无线网络，生活会变得更加美好。

    Another example is a series on YouTube called Away We Happened. It was born out of the insight that the target audience, Asian Americans, are above-average users of social media. So we created six webisodes. The really interesting learning here is that we created only the first webisode. These two young professionals meet by happenstance in a coffee shop on the way to the airport, and somehow they take each other's luggage. At the end of the webisode the question is asked, "What do you think should happen next? Should they meet up?" Using Facebook, our viewers input ideas and voted on them. The script for the next week was written, shot, produced, and put up on YouTube that week. We've had millions of viewers. Our smartphone devices again played an integral part in the story. It's been a really fun adventure for us.

    These are experiments. Do you try to measure their success?

    Absolutely.

    How do you do it?

    A number of ways. We've had millions of views of the Daybreak series, but we also developed an app called the Jackboxer App -- the Jackboxers are the good guys in Daybreak. You download the app to your smartphone and follow clues along the way throughout the webisodes. You could learn more about the technology that was used in a webisode, so we take you to our website. We're lucky because our customers are so passionate about their technology that they always want to learn more. We find that many users go to the website and are spending about an hour on average looking at the technology, checking out the device that was used, the HTC One, checking out the Translator or the Watson technology or whatever.

    The competition among wireless carriers to introduce new services is relentless. How do you keep up?

    We have what we think is one of the largest crowd-sourcing ideation programs. We have 250,000 employees. All of them can submit an idea, and it's crowd-sourced, so people say, "But what about this?" or "What about that?" We bring some of those ideas into commercial use. For example, a young father was using two devices at work, one for work and one for home, trying to keep up with his job and his family. He came up with the idea of having a single device with multiple personas. He submitted that idea. We worked it through our Foundry outside Dallas, one of our three innovation centers around the world. And it became a commercial product we launched last fall called AT&T Toggle.

    You're responsible for building this brand, but ultimately isn't the brand embodied in the behavior of the company and its employees every day?

    We always say that the AT&T brand comes to life when someone walks into one of our 2,300 retail stores, when a technician goes into their home, when they use our products and services. The advertising, that's icing on the cake. The cake is the experience.

    Just about everybody in America who wants a cellphone has one. Where do you find significant growth?

    What we've experienced over the past five years is just the tip of the iceberg. We've seen a 20,000% increase in the usage of our network over the past five years. We expect that over the next five years we'll grow another 75% every year if the spectrum is available.

    So you ain't seen nothing yet.

    The digital home is a great example. You'll be able to run your household from your office, from your vacation spot, and to do things like not only know that there's a water issue in your home but also, using your tablet, to shut your water off. If your son or daughter comes home and the door is locked, you can activate your camera, unlock the door, and see them go in. You can watch them do their homework.

    One day you'll walk out of your home and you won't have to check to see if it's going to rain because the handle on your umbrella will glow, which tells you, "You'd better take me because it's going to rain today." Everything will be better when it's wirelessly connected.

    你在AT&T度过了自己的职业生涯。对于希望进入营销行业的年轻人，你会建议他们坚持像你一样的职业道路吗？

    当然。公司在不断变化和发展，公司董事长（兰德尔•史蒂芬森）说过，只要错过了一个技术周期，你便出局了。技术变革的速度非常惊人，我刚到公司时，公司销售的产品与现在的产品截然不同。对消费者的专注和对消费者需求的重视才是让一切得以实现的关键。或许只有两样东西能让你调转车头，说：“天哪，我必须得回家去拿。”一样是智能手机，另外一样是钱包，而我们正在努力用移动支付技术淘汰钱包。从营销的角度来说，这是最好不过的切入点了。

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    You've spent your career with AT&T. Is that the career path you'd recommend to a young person today who wants a career in marketing?

    Yes. The company has changed and grown, and our chairman [Randall Stephenson] says that if you miss one technology cycle, you're out. The pace of change has been amazing, and what we sold to customers when I first started is very different from what we're selling today. That focus on the customers and where they're headed is what keeps everything exciting. There are probably two things that you'll turn your car around for and say, "Oh, my gosh, I've got to go home and get that." They're your smartphone and your wallet, and we're working to eliminate the wallet with mobile payments. From a marketing perspective, it doesn't get any better than that.